Friday, May 28, 2021

"Neil Since '92": A Spotify Playlist From Bill

 



Neil Young grabbed my attention early in my listening life. He was always in heavy rotation on rock radio, from Buffalo Springfield to CSNY to his varied solo work. I bought Comes a Time when it came out, and up until about 5 years ago, picked up every album as it came out. 

All those albums started piling up though, and I think it was around the time of the Monsanto Years that I realized I wasn’t interested in listening to all the screeds set to music. Neil decided that a sledgehammer was the best way of getting his message across. I decided that wasn’t my cup of tea, and we parted ways. 

I did continue to keep up to date with all the Archives releases, which have been pretty great. The unreleased albums from the 70s—especially the live ones—reminded me of why I liked him so much. So, when the talk turned to Neil’s output since 1992 here are on Burning Wood, I decided to put together this playlist to make some sense of the last nearly 20 years of releases. 

I limited the selections to one from every studio album, including CSNY and the Dead Man soundtrack. I did double up on  Le Noise, because I like both songs. 

I hope you find some gems in here. While putting the playlist together, I heard a little bit of On the Beach in Razor Love, smiled at the Oh Susannah cover, and marveled at the majesty of Ramada Inn, my favorite song here. 

Dig in if you can!

Bill

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the mix, Bill. I found some tracks I have enjoyed for a long while and am giving the others a spin. I play Sleeps With Angels occasionally - I think Change Your Mind is almost as good as Powderfinger, and the title track is a much more enjoyable tribute to Kurt Cobain than Patti Smith's About A Boy. Prairie Wind and Silver and Gold also get regular rotation.

It's much longer between drinks for Psychedelic Pill, Americana, and Chrome Dreams II, usually when I want to listen to Neil, but not the same albums as usual. I have Living with War (since it was released) and have played it less than 5 times; it's unlikely to get another go. The rest, we'll see, but I have low expectations.

- Paul in DK

mauijim said...

Thanks for sharing Bill. LeNoise stands out for me as his late life keeper. Really enjoy Lanois' influence on it. Gotta go back to Freedom for me as his last work i return to you in its entirety. This sampler then works very well indeed.

Michael Giltz said...

Thx for the mix. So to recap, he had 11 wildly prolific years of absolute genius. Only Joni Mitchell had a 1970s to equal Neil's. (Go Canada!) I'd take that any day!

dogbreath said...

Having bypassed a ton of his output for yonks now, I was sufficiently intrigued to hear these tracks I reactivated my Spotify account especially. Some good, previously unheard stuff in there as well as a few from when I was a more avid follower. Nice job and thanks for mixing it up. Cheers!

Whattawino said...

Thank you, Bill for the Sunday morning soundtrack. It worked for me!